


Maladjusted Demons and Other Malcontents

by ushauz



Series: Beyond the Fade [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Demons, Multi, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29904651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ushauz/pseuds/ushauz
Summary: Step one is surviving the realization that someone isn't as mortal as they first thought.Step two is living with that, every single day.
Relationships: Dagna/Sera (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Leliana/Josephine Montilyet
Series: Beyond the Fade [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2198847
Comments: 28
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for an anon who back in November wanted to see more of the original fic, and it turned out I did have thoughts on what could happen next.

Ghirill Lavellan’s Inner Circle survived the various realizations that some of them weren’t as mortal as they thought they were. There’d been anger, some tears, and a lot of heavy drinking on Dorian and Sera’s parts, but none of them burst into flame and started trying to kill other people, so as far as Ghirill was concerned, it had been a massive success.

That said, there had been some changes.

Iron Bull and Dorian had been, as far as Ghirill was able to figure, just fucking before. But Iron Bull had stayed, and now they were talking to each other, in public even, by a balcony, voices low and pleased. Iron Bull did have to have Ghirill hit him with the feelings stick twice now, but other than that was keeping it together.

If he hadn’t been Tal-Vashoth before, he definitely was now.

Sera and _Cole_ of all people were actually bonding. Though Sera still refused to interact with Solas, something had happened, and she was now tolerating Cole, and Cole in turn had taken it upon himself to make sure Sera ‘didn’t explode’.

Which was good. Ghirill wasn’t sure if Cole was talking metaphorically or literally, but either way fewer explosions were preferred.

Vivienne had never approved of Ghirill per se, as she wasn’t as politically astute, and had in fact allied with the mage rebellion, but she was down right passive aggressive.

“She’s having a crisis,” Cole had told Ghirill.

“I don’t care,” Ghirill had said in return, and Cole had given her such a dirty look.

“I’m immune to that,” Ghirill had retorted. “My younger siblings would always do that to me, and it’s happened too often. You should have gotten there earlier.”

Blackwall and Varric seemed to be adapting reasonably well. Cassandra, not as much, but Cassandra was still doing her job so Ghirill wasn’t going to complain.

The thing was it wasn’t like she was particularly _good_ with people, which was of course why the Creators were somehow fucking with her from Beyond by putting her in a figurehead position, where words were important.

Like, for example, trying to manage shemlen politics. Like trying to find a diplomatic way of telling Celene she was going to die, and also that Ghirill personally looked forward to her death for what she did to her people.

Which mostly just meant not telling her that and letting Josephine take care of getting invitations to the main event so they could manipulate things.

She went to Halamshiral, let Celene die, and blackmailed Gaspard into letting Briala pull the strings. She hated every last moment of it. It wasn’t like with the Clans, where for all the complications and long histories, there was a sense of community; they were all Dalish, all the People, and that brought them together.

In the Game, it was purely to watch your opponents burn, and if you had to sacrifice everything you loved to win, then so be it.

But some of the steps were familiar, as much as Ghirill hated that. Among the Dalish, there were enough enemies and hardships already, that overtly attacking another clan would get you banned from the Arlathvhen. Disagreements had to be settled in other manners. Like stiffing people halla. Or passive aggressively dunking on another Clan’s vallaslin styles.

So yes, Ghirill knew all about how to passive aggressively dunk on the intricacies of the masks Orlesians wore.

“Your pearls aren’t symmetrical,” Ghirill had said bluntly. “One’s on the lower left- slightly off center. You really should have seen someone before going public in that. I just thought I’d be nice and let you know before someone else did.”

By ‘nice’, Ghirill of course meant ‘verbally eviscerating you in earshot of your peers’.

One of the few upsides of the event had been seeing Josephine and Yvette interact. On every level, Josephine really just was Yvette’s exasperated older sister. No one seemed to see that under that flesh was Pride. And of course they didn’t; Ghirill even hadn’t until she accidentally triggered the binding trap in Skyhold.

It was sweet. It made Ghirill feel emotions. And she wasn’t the only one; she noted a brief look of utter envy across Dorian’s face before he returned to something neutral.

Hopefully that wasn’t a bad sign. She didn’t know nearly enough about spirits and corrupted spirits (according to Solas, not Josephine) to know when a sign was particularly bad.

Solas meanwhile had a great time at Halamshiral. He watched the proceedings with hungry eyes and seemed to downright bask in all the intrigue.

“That was honestly fun for you,” Ghirill said, after it was over, in a guest room somewhere. It was ornate to the point of being discomforting, and she wanted to return to Skyhold, or better yet, her aravel.

Hopefully Samassan was keeping it in good condition.

“Well, yes,” Solas said almost guiltily. “You are making history.”

Ghirill gave him a look of ‘you know that’s not what I meant’. She was leaning against Solas, who had his arms around her waist.

Solas gave her an innocent look back before it morphed into something like ‘sorry, habits’.

Things with Solas things were good. Better than good. He talked more honestly about the Fade, about his life.

“It was fascinating seeing the events play out,” Solas said. “I tried to get a briefing of recent historical events in the Fade, but the Fade has so many sides, so many interpretations. Which is in a way, a truth of the world, that one event will be seen differently by those who witness it. Though it does make it difficult to find out what actually happened sometimes.”

“I’m sure what I’m doing and what the Orlesians think I’m doing are two very different things,” Ghirill said dryly.

“You have been angry in Orlais more often than not. The Exalted Plains is a horrid place, isn’t it?”

Ghirill may have smashed some ‘monuments’ in the Exalted Plains.

“Damn,” she had said, after crushing and defacing the last one with a sledgehammer. “Bandits these days. You just can’t trust them.”

“Yes, bandits truly are awful,” Dorian said.

“Saw them with my own two eyes,” Blackwall agreed.

“The worst,” Sera said.

Ghirill gave Sera a strange look.

“What?” she asked. “I can not be all Dalish and yet still be mad about genocide. Lay off.”

Ghirill had nodded at that, and then gone to crushing the monuments into finer dust.

In the present, she relaxed into Solas’ arms. “Yeah. I’m not exactly fond of that place.”

“There are so many versions of Orlais floating about the Fade,” Solas said. “From a myriad of viewpoints. No one viewpoint can encapsulate the spirit of Orlais, but all of them together paint a picture.”

“Tell me something interesting about the Orlesian side of the Fade,” Ghirill asked.

Solas smiled as he always did. It was kinda sad that he always got just so happy whenever she asked, but she was happy to listen.

“Orlesian Desire demons tend to present in a male body, even if many of them don’t think of themselves as male, and some of them even think of themselves as female,” Solas said, with that gentle excitement in his voice. “That’s because in Orlesian, the word ‘desire’ is masculine. Many of the spirits and demons reflect the language if they spend their time focusing on Orlesian dreamers, while spirits and demons in Ferelden reflect the Common tongue which doesn’t have gendered words for concepts, and thus usually present as more ambiguous. Desire however in Ferelden is still seen as something feminine, a remnant of culture. Similarly in Orlais and Antiva and the Anderfels, regardless of the linguistical gender of the concept of ‘faith’, many Faith spirits present feminine looking due to Chantry influence and the link in such places of holy figures being female.”

“That’s fascinating,” Ghirill said. “So much wrapped in sheer language.”

“Language influences the ways we think in a number of minute ways,” Solas said. “But at the same time, there’s not a direct link. In Qunlat there is one pronoun people use that is both ‘he’ and ‘she’, and yet there are rigid gender roles under the Qun.”

“I wonder what spirits are like that spend time around the Qun,” Ghirill said slowly. “I’m guessing you haven’t spent time there, based on the things you’ve said, but from Iron Bull I learned there’s only the one word for spirit and demon alike, and it’s not a kind one. It has to influence them in some way.”

“Yes,” Solas said, eyes tightening. “It’s a destructive ideology for those from the Fade.”

They spent the rest of the night gently entangled in each other’s arms. She didn’t get the opportunity to let her guard down often. She’d been a protector of the Clan, and it was so pleasant to just be soft for a while, talk stories, feel relaxed.

For once, not to be the center of major decisions. She hadn’t been trained in any leadership role, and the chance to just be was one she rarely got these days.

—

In another room, equally gaudy, the Fake People Club had met.

Sera and Cole had spent Halamshiral trying to get the servants out of harm’s way, with mixed success. Dorian had been on the strike team and had tried to not get too homesick over all the murders at the party, but with little success.

Sera and Dorian were celebrating not fucking up the night with alcohol while Cole celebrated by being next to friends. And, you know, maybe, Sera and Dorian were getting more into the habit of drinking, but Sera maintained it was healthier than bursting into flame. One step at a time. And at least they were drinking together, not alone.

Cole wouldn’t drink, but he’d bring water and snacks and sometimes slowly nibble on a cracker.

They played cards, and Sera grumbled that if she had to be not mortal then at the very least she could end up with some kind of useful power, like cheating at cards. So far all she had done was breathe smoke when she’d been too freaked. And she had been and continued to be too wigged out to try anything similar to that.

Felt bad anyway, like old hurts.

“Have you given the question any thought of yet?” Cole asked, catching onto the thread of thoughts.

Sera sighed. Part of her wanted to ignore the question but, slowly, maybe, she was starting to realize that ignoring her situation wasn’t going to get her anywhere. And anyways, she had. She hated that she had, but there it was. “Yeah. What about you Dorian?”

“Yes,” Dorian said slowly, fiddling with his cards. “Though my thoughts on are complicated.”

“Well what ain’t at this point?”

“Like, I should want to be a spirit,” Dorian said. “Demons turned their back on the Maker before the Maker turned his back on everyone, and as a good Andrastian, I should definitely want to be a spirit. I don’t begrudge humanity any; I still have a hard time thinking of myself as a spirit at all even. Furthermore, Reformation is one of those positive things that sounds right up what spirits do. So logically, I should be a spirit.”

“You keep accidentally thinking of yourself as a demon too then?”

“Ugh, I do,” Dorian said. “I just know I’m a demon. I just _know_ it. It’s me; of course I’m a demon. But I want very much to be a spirit!”

“That’s good!” Cole said. “Wanting to be a spirit is step one in being a spirit.”

“Well, Cole was a demon, and now he’s not,” Sera said. Cole smiled at her for getting it right, and she reflexively scowled.

She really hoped that’s how it worked, because from what little she could remember of the orphanage, she didn’t want to do that again. “Maybe that’s just how it works. You pick one, and you keep doing that, and maybe eventually it’ll stick?”

“Maybe,” Dorian said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“See with me, Mania, that could be demon,” Sera said. “I don’t know how you’d demon Reformation.”

“I’m sure I could manage somehow.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Cole said in what was likely an attempt to be helpful.

Dorian gave him an exasperated look. “I don’t suppose you could just tell us what we are.”

Cole hesitated, and see, that was the sign, because if they were spirits he would happily tell them so.

—

In the very corner of the back of her mind, Sera had pieced together enough clues to figure out a few of her whatever behaviors. She knew what she was. She knew she was still adjusting to a world where she woke up and remembered that she was a demon once.

(She wondered when Cole stopped waking up. If that would happen to her. If all the bits that made her Sera would slowly fall away as fire reclaimed its birthright.)

But they were back in Skyhold, and Dagna was happy to see them, and Sera was happy to see Dagna. She would rather have it be completely about how cute Dagna was, or how smart she was. Which, to be fair, were contributing factors. Dagna was brilliant and funny and cute and didn’t talk to Sera like she was some helpless crazy person.

It wasn’t just those things though; there was a draw to everything Dagna _made,_ from her theories to her experiments to her inventions. Dagna had wild ideas that she just went and did before asking Ghirill if it was okay, probably because Ghirill would say no.

“Everyone’s got glowstones,” Dagna was saying to her excitedly, her eyes still lit with the fires of creation. “Those are easy. But not all light is the same. Light can have different properties, beyond just colors, but even color is more complicated than you would think.”

Sera knew she wasn’t going to be able to follow all the science, but that was okay. When Dagna got excited, she’d smile until her cheeks dimpled.

(And she could feel it now that she allowed herself to think about it, feel a weird echo in Dagna that thrummed in Sera’s chest, almost like a high.)

“So most forms of light don’t actually help surface plants,” Dagna said. “Glowstones? Mage light? Firelight? Bioluminescent fungus? None of that works. As far as we’ve researched, only sunlight will work. So I’ve been experimenting around with glowstones to try to change the properties of the light they emit, to make it specifically sunlight stones. I guess so in theory you could grow crops in dark places, but mostly I just want to see if you can, you know?”

Sera nodded, and finished salving up Dagna’s hands before starting to bandage them.

“Got too much warm light I’m guessing,” Sera said knowingly.

“Yes, but that’s exciting, isn’t it?” Dagna said. “I mean for a while all I could do was make the glowstone brighter, but if I’m finally getting to warm light, that’s a sign I’m on the right path.”

It felt like staying up several hours in a strange focus that normally eluded her grasp as she meticulously ground and distilled ingredients for her flasks. It felt like archery practice, shooting arrow after arrow, even past when her muscles and fingers told her no, because stopping felt like death.

It felt like life itself pulsing through her blood, through her flesh.

“Sounds like!” Sera said excitedly. “And I’m sure it could be useful.”

Sera knew next to nothing about farming, but maybe. And she wanted to be good, to encourage Dagna, to see if she could.

“I wonder if I could invent a new kind of light,” Dagna wondered out loud. “If that’s even possible.”

Sera thought for a moment. “Could you… distill light somehow? Not like put it in a bottle, but”—she thought for a moment, trying to translate alchemy into light—”reduce light down into components?”

She got the Dagna smile dimples at that. “That’s actually quite possible! There’s theories, mostly from Tevinter. Not that the Qun doesn’t have any, but they don’t share their papers. And a number of the ideas conflict with each other, but, one person theorized that color comes from different frequencies of light. And you can see this when shining a beam of light through a crystal; it refracts into colors. The magic is in changing the frequency of light, but Tevinter already has that for their- Dorian called them ‘movie theaters’?. What Tevinter doesn’t have though…”

“Is sunlight rocks,” Sera completed.

“Exactly. And I want to do it first, and then write a paper on it so everyone knows I did it first,” Dagna said. “It’s a very competitive environment.”

“Well, next time, wear better protection,” Sera said. Not that she blamed Dagna; it was hard to stop in such states. Potential risk seemed less important than _doing it now._

But she could be safe about her thing. That seemed spirity, right?

“Right, yes, of course. I just got too excited,” Dagna said.

—

Iron Bull had, in fact, gone to Ben-Hassrath school. He’d done very well, up until he failed basic math by picking the Chargers over the dreadnought, though it was a choice he still had yet to regret. But the point was, he could in fact tell that he was clinging harder to the people he had left after leaving the Qun. He’d gone Tal-Vashoth over them, and his mind now wanted to make it worthwhile.

So he clung to the Chargers. He clung to Dorian, who was in fact a demon, maybe, maybe a spirit. He clung to his coworkers, and very much didn’t think about how they wouldn’t actually be working together that long in the grand scheme of things. Sooner rather than later, this was going to end, and then he would have to manage in the South.

It shouldn’t have been frightening; he’d been faking being Tal-Vashoth for a while.

He’d have his Chargers, but he didn’t know what about Dorian, who very much could not go home to Tevinter now; it just wasn’t safe for him. He tried nudging Dorian towards the Chargers, and they seemed to accept him in stride. Krem had made a joke after the reveal about how Dorian was ‘finally bringing something new to the Charger roster’, and that helped reassure Dorian.

But Iron Bull wasn’t the only one becoming a bit… clingy. And it said something about how fucked up Dorian was feeling that he wasn’t even denying feeling clingy.

Which wasn’t entirely bad. Iron Bull actually liked it, because Dorian was actually expressing what he needed for once, instead of trying to play mind chess with Iron Bull. Not that Iron Bull hated mind chess; he played rounds with Solas a lot. It was just in relationships, which was definitely what Iron Bull was in now, Iron Bull appreciated some open, honest communication.

“So he’s good, right?” Iron Bull asked Cole.

“He’s- doing as well as he can,” Cole said, trying for optimism. “You are helping!”

“I’m just worried he’s going to break out into demons,” Iron Bull said.

“He is a demon,” Cole said.

“Yeah, but, you know, with more fire or fangs or too many legs.”

“He’s in flesh though,” Cole said. “If he broke out into demons you wouldn’t be able to see.”

Iron Bull let himself hear that, and accept that, and not have a massive freak out about that right in front of the kid. He was getting better at doing that.

“You’re worried about him, but not just about demon things,” Cole said.

“So, I get he’s a spirit, or demon, or something,” Iron Bull said. “And Solas said his thing is reforming things. Makes sense. And spirits need to do their thing or else they break out into demons.”

“Or just get eaten by the nothing and there’s nothing left,” Cole said helpfully.

Great. Fantastic. Just watch Dorian slowly wither away into nothing- but you know on the other side, that wasn’t too different from starvation. Were there starvation signs to look out for? He was going to need a guide on the caretaking of demons if this continued, and Dorian hadn’t tired of him yet.

(Dorian still needed him, and that was fine, but Iron Bull was slowly starting to realize this was, in fact, a relationship, and there was no saying how long that would last. People normally didn’t stick around this long. Demons definitely didn’t, which, normally, was how Iron Bull preferred it.)

“Which would be bad. So, the question is, how do I just, you know, nudge him off what he’s currently hyperfixating on and onto something else more manageable?”

Cole shrugged. “If you find out, let me know.”

Well great. Maybe Solas would know.

—

Before the Inquisition, Ghirill had run into a grand total of three spirits in her entire life. Three. She was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be that common to run into, and yet.

“It’s weird there’s so many spirits around,” Ghirill said Solas, both of them leaning against the battlements while Cole was sewing something nearby. She was pretty sure it was for Krem because if she squinted it looked like a nug. “Is this actually representative of how many spirits per mortal there are walking around in Thedas?”

“No,” Solas said. “I think the Anchor subconsciously draws them to you.”

“It’s shiny,” Cole piped up.

“Well I don’t mind,” Ghirill said. “I guess it’s nice to be seen as pleasant for once.”

The nobles she had to deal with sure thought otherwise.

“I know I have a biased perspective, but you are wonderful,” Solas said. “You are refreshingly honest, and you have a good heart.”

“Aww, thanks,” Ghirill said, a smile tugging at her lips.

“There’s some other spirits around,” Cole said, “but I thought I wouldn’t point them out. People were afraid with only this many. More would be too much.”

“Makes sense,” Ghirill said. “And I suppose not all of them know as well?”

“Correct,” Solas said. “Though I have been trying to help those _gently_ find themselves.”

“Any famous ones?” Ghirill asked.

And see, she was thinking of Fade famous. Surely there had to be famous spirits in the Fade, perhaps ones that had lived for thousands of years. But Cole and Solas said nothing, and that was telling, because if a spirit was Fade famous, it wouldn’t matter, would it?

“There is a famous one?” Ghirill asked, mind clicking things together. “…famous in our world?”

Solas winced.

“Shit did Anders join the Inquisition?”

“He was curious!” Cole protested. “And nobody wanted to investigate why we were doing so well with our healers suddenly. He heard you supported the mage rebellion and had to come see.”

“Well, as long as he’s helping,” Ghirill said.

“Do you want to meet him again?” Cole asked.

“If I meet him again I can’t have plausible deniability,” Ghirill said. “I do not want to get more into shem politics than I already have. I just want to take out Corypheus’ forces, stop him somehow, and then call it a day.”

—

Ghirill Lavellan was what Sera would think of as ‘proper elfy’. She was Dalish, worshiped weird elvhen gods, and put up banners of her elfiness. Most of her politics boiled down to ‘how would this help elves’, and at first it grated against old hurts Sera still had because Sera’s hurts never seemed to go away, but Ghirill had struck up an alliance with Briala, and was trying to help city elves without judging them.

It was different from what Sera was used to.

But she wasn’t sure it should hurt. She wasn’t sure if the hurting made any sense. So, unfortunately, she was going to have to ask someone who had been there done that.

At the next meeting of the Fake People Club, Sera swallowed a whole lot of pride as well as beer before popping the question.

“Cole… do you think of yourself as human?”

Cole blinked and tilted his head. “…no. I don’t. Why?”

Her first instinct was to then just deflect and bury the question and move onto other things, but Dorian had caught her gaze, and there was a brief look of vulnerability there as well.

“Like, my entire life, people said I was a shite elf,” Sera said, words feeling bland in her mouth, but she didn’t want to get too emotional in this. That would be vulnerable. In front of other people. And she already had enough of that, thanks. “Humans, elves, both of them agreed that, and I was like ‘fine then I don’t want to be an elf’. But, here I am in the later, and I’m not really an elf, and that, I don’t know, feels bad.”

She exhaled loudly and slid her beer away from herself. “You’re the helping one. Help out. What even is my friggin brain?”

“It’s not just me then,” Dorian said, and there was something that it wasn’t just Sera either, though she doubted Dorian’s situation was the same as hers. Nobody had denied Dorian his human status, she thought at least. But who knows, Tevinter sounded like shite, so maybe there was some other trauma up in there. Cole would probably know. “I just- I still think of myself as a human. I’m technically in a human body. People don’t go ‘oh no demon’ when they see me; they think ‘how do you do fellow human’. I mean, sure, I’m something from the Fade, but it’s not like I remember the Fade. I only remember growing up as a human in Tevinter.”

“Yeah!” Sera said. “I don’t remember _shite_ about the Fade.” Mostly. Flickers sometimes, but nothing that stuck around. “I remember this world. And I’ve got the ears. Nobody’s not going to think I’m not an elf. And fuckit, people told me I can’t be an elf all my life, well, guess what, I’m an elf.”

“I didn’t remember the Fade at first either,” Cole said. “I have no idea if either of you will remember.”

“I’m in a flesh suit, and Sera spawned from herself in Thedas,” Dorian supplied.

“And I made myself an entire body from the dying wishes of a dead apprentice,” Cole said. “So, we are all ‘weird’ at this. None of us match typical experiences in the mortal world.”

“It’s just, being an elf hurt me,” Sera said. “So why do I now feel hurt at the idea of not being one?”

Cole shrugged. “Hurt is complicated, as is identity. And you are right. People look at you and see an elf, because that’s who the re- first Sera was.”

“You’ve experienced life as an elf,” Dorian said. “So I don’t think it counts as being a ‘real’ or ‘fake’ elf.”

“Oh right,” Cole said, eyes widening. “That’s the problem. You think it means they are right, and you were a fake elf. I don’t think that’s true.”

“Yeah,” Dorian said. “I mean, granted we are a skewed sample size, but it’s not just us. There’s other people just wandering around thinking they are mortal, and surprise! They were a Fade thing all along. That doesn’t stop them from having lived a very true and real life as whatever race they were.”

“Also Solas is still an elf,” Cole pointed out. “And he’s a Pride spirit. So I think if he can do it, so can you.”

“Ugh,” Sera said, wrinkling her nose. “Okay, maybe, but nobody tells him shite about this, alright. He’s full of himself enough already.”

—

As events progressed, Josephine watched Leliana sink further and further into murder and knives and dubious morality. It hurt to watch, as Josephine remembered the Leliana from before. Even as the Left Hand, she had still carried a gentleness about her, a mischievousness that had long since vanished.

It had when Justinia had died, and Leliana lost something of herself with her.

“Niceness before knives,” she tried to remind Leliana. Not that knives were bad, but niceness first could accomplish a lot and without the senseless death.

Plus, people were then in a better disposition about you and were more inclined to act agreeably in the future. It was hard for people to act agreeably when they’d been stabbed, and Josephine told Leliana as much.

Leliana rolled her eyes. “The point of my business is for when people aren’t being agreeable,” she said smoothly. “And, arguably, sometimes someone ending up dead encourages people to consider avenues they had previously thought weren’t worth their time.”

But more than the dubious morality, Leliana was slowly running out of something. If she wasn’t working, she’d stare blankly into the distance, head cocked slightly. Sometimes, Josephine would catch her humming something reminiscent of lyrium song.

“I’m finishing her work,” Leliana would say, and wouldn’t say of who ‘her’ was referring to. Andraste? Divine Justinia? The first Leliana?

The question was, what happened when Leliana ran out of work to do, when there was nothing left to anchor her to this world. Perhaps she would be fine. She wasn’t from the Fade and thus didn’t work by the normal spirit metaphysics. That said, there was a clear difference to Leliana now than Leliana a few years ago, and Josephine hadn’t gotten far in her life by ignoring warning flags.

So she voiced her concerns to Ghirill.

“I thought she did have something,” Ghirill said slowly. “The Inquisition.”

“Something beyond the Inquisition,” Josephine explained. “The closer we come to completing our work, the more she seems to fade. She needs something else.” Josephine hesitated, because this wasn’t where she excelled, but she had gleaned knowledge throughout the ages. “Before, Leliana was the Left Hand of the Divine, but she was that as she truly believed it was the right thing to do. Her faith was beautiful, but she’s lost that, and she needs something else I think if she is to remain.”

“Hm,” Ghirill said succinctly. “I’ll try to do something. Hopefully I won’t fuck up.”

Josephine winced. “Hopefully. I’d suggest taking pointers from Solas, but frankly he doesn’t know anything about what Leliana is anymore than she does.”

And if he said otherwise, he was lying.

“So… I don’t know what the rules are, the stakes are dubious, but I could accidentally ruin Leliana if I make the wrong play,” Ghirill stated.

“Well, yes.”

“Sure, great, fine, I’ll do my best.”


	2. Chapter 2

Iron Bull understood the weird blood magic that stopped people from putting two and two together and coming up demon had faded from Dorian. Dorian, too, knew the magic had faded.

The thing was, Dorian still wanted to return to Tevinter. He still wanted to try to make it better. And, yeah, okay, some of it was having flashbacks to Seheron, and how much work he put in trying to fix the island only to watch everyone die around him and all his work destroyed.  That was a not insignificant chunk of it.

But also Dorian was a demon. Tevinter didn’t like demons. If Dorian went back, they weren’t going to allow him to participate in politics, at best.

At worst?

Iron Bull didn’t want to think of the worst. Iron Bull already had to think of the worst when he thought of the Qun heading South before he found out Dorian was a demon, and there were a number of worsts there.

He didn’t want to go through that again.

And so, maybe, if he was careful, he could nudge Dorian off his fixation and onto a different one. Demons needed to do their thing—he had learned as much from Cole—but there seemed to be a choice in what they did their thing about.

It didn’t have to be  _ Tevinter _ for Dorian to fix.

“I’m just saying, Fiona doesn’t hate you,” Iron Bull said in a reasonable tone. “She worked with you in taking down Alexius, and she remembered that. A lot of the mages we recruited from the rebellion know you assisted and advocated for them to the Inquisitor, so you actually have some positive reputation with the mage rebellion.”

“Which was completely unnecessary as it turned out,” Dorian said. “I know now Lavellan is all for mage rights.”

“Yeah, but it’s not over,” Iron Bull said. “They’ll need help setting things up, a new educational system, maybe with someone who knows what a semi-functional one looks like.”

“They probably would,” Dorian agreed.

Iron Bull waited for a moment. Dorian did not take the hint.

“That person… could be you,” Iron Bull said. “You could teach, I don’t know, creepy necromancy to mages.”

Dorian snorted. “Ah yes, in exchange for classic tokens of apples and their own spilled blood, I can impart my magical wisdom.”

Iron Bull gave him a look. “I was being serious. You’re smart. You’re an academic. I know you and Alexius worked hard on systems of reforming magical education in Tevinter. It was Alexius’ whole thing before he lost his marbles—well, that and education for soporati—but you and he spent years trying to make magical education more affordable and more widespread. You couldn’t get it to work there because the Magisterium sabotaged your every effort, but maybe you could here?”

Dorian looked thoughtful. "We tried to explain so many times that it was actually cheaper in the long run to simply fund the magical education of all mages from Tevinter's coffers than it was cleaning up arcane messes and the occasional abomination outbreak. We had- well, we had a number of possible methods. But the Magisterium never went through with it. Cowards."

"So, why not here?" Iron Bull asked. "You have some valuable insight, and while the same systems aren't in place so obviously a one-to-one isn't possible, I'm sure they'd be happy to consult you. You could make things better... here."

For a moment, Iron Bull could see him considering it.

And then he could almost see as Dorian internally hit a mental wall. “Okay, but if I’m doing that here, who is doing educational reformations in Tevinter?”

Iron Bull sighed. “You-”

“What about other things? Actually letting Liberati have rights? Give them a path to true citizenship instead of just freedperson status? Maybe, here’s a crazy concept that’s been growing on me, abolishing slavery?”

“You said the curse was lifted from everyone,” Iron Bull pointed out. “That some people back in Tevinter would definitely know you are a demon. They aren’t going to let, in their eyes, a nonperson be a magister. They barely let  _ elves _ be magisters, and the few elven magisters there are, are considered jokes rather than political entities.”

“But someone has to,” Dorian said passionately. “It’s  _ home. _ I know it’s corrupt, but I came from there. There are good things, good people in Tevinter. If every person who didn’t have Tevinter’s worst interests in mind just left, then it would be left to the Venatori, and I hate them, and they aren’t going to fucking win this.”

He was losing him, shit.

“I will find a way,” Dorian said, conviction radiating off of him. “I don’t know how right now, but I’m going to help.”

Iron Bull decided to table the discussion for now. He’d have to try again later. He’d have to win this, because otherwise Dorian was going to get himself killed.

—

Josephine and Solas had been in peace since the start of the Inquisition. Solas focused on the Fade, after all, and Josephine on diplomacy. For the few past matters that overlapped, they came to amicable agreements and moved onward. They had both agreed to try to subtly drop hints to the previously unknown Fade residents, and then they’d both tried to deal with damage from the fallout.

Normally, they were in agreement.

“I’ve noticed you’ve been trying to counsel Sera,” Josephine said smoothly. They were sitting across from each other with an assortment of little frilly cakes between them. There was tea for Josephine and water for Solas.

“With little success,” Solas said. “She still refuses to listen to me, but I had no expectations she would. I’d hoped, yes, but things have been going the way I thought they would.”

Josephine thought very carefully of how to phrase this. “I understand that we have differing philosophies on such things, but you also have to take in the perspective of Sera. She was born from Rage, and I think it would be doing her a disservice to try to alienate her from her origins. Part of her fear and hatred of the Fade comes from hating herself after all, and thus I think it would be best if she grew to accept herself first.”

Solas looked at her.

She looked at Solas.

“This is about demons versus spirits, isn’t it,” Solas said flatly.

“It absolutely is,” Josephine said, popping a tiny cake into her mouth. “And I’m not wrong. She started as a demon, and views herself as such. Attempting to shift her cognition into viewing herself as a spirit isn’t going to make her hate herself any less, and she will almost certainly develop a complex that many spirits do develop, that anything less than perfect will ‘revert’ her to demonhood. Even if she might feel more comfortable as a spirit, I would think step one would still be for her to accept her past self.”

“Her past self,” Solas said, “was a Rage demon so overcome with the injustice of a situation that she lashed out and tried to burn anyone who entered the building. That is not the description of a being in good health, and it’s not inherently wrong for a person to look at their past actions and want to do better. Cassandra shows remorse over her own past failures, but we aren’t trying to change that. It’s good for her to regret, as it will help her not repeat her same mistakes in the future.”

“She can learn she did wrong without learning that she was _ inherently  _ wrong,” Josephine countered. “That is what she has heard. And the arbitrary ideas of perfection damage many spirits. It’s easier for those who have lived in the guise of mortals to adapt to demonhood than spirithood. This world is far more complex, and they are just getting started in understanding themselves.”

“Even if the Chantry is an inherently corrupt institution, Sera, and, also, Dorian, are themselves Andrastian,” Solas said in return. “Their own cognitions need to be taken into account of what they think demons are. Perhaps you can find peace with being a demon while revering the Chant, but you are one of a few. While ideally they would turn from their religion, I can’t see that actually happening, and therefore, it’s easier to put them into a path that isn’t going to cause them massive emotional and spiritual turmoil in the future.”

“Not if I help,” Josephine said, clinking her teacup onto her plate. “Dorian has started asking religious questions to me. It’s not his fault the only versions he’s heard have been from mortal lips. And if they already think of themselves as demons, then the priority should be in helping them realize that’s not a condemnation of their very selves, that it doesn’t strip them of their own personhood. If they choose to be spirits, it shouldn’t be out of terror of being demon. That’s how you get maladjusted spirits.”

“Whereas you never need the descriptor of ‘maladjusted’ for demons, as it’s already part of the definition,” Solas said.

“Says someone who is still trying to spirit the concept of Pride. Hm, what was it that you said earlier? That Knowledge is often twisted into Pride? What does that mean for yourself?”

“In common, yes, because it’s a language with no sense of nuance. In  _ elvhen-” _

—

There was work ahead, planning for Adamant. Fiona had the brunt of it, planning out tactical advances, how they would get past the walls, the logistics of the travel over.

But there was still work for Leliana, checking in on how various missions were progressing, the latest cipher the Venatori were using, the disappearance of a few of her agents, the information on Maddox, and whether or not he could potentially be used against Samson.

The work sustained her, though as days passed, she felt more… distant, she supposed. A strange homesickness she couldn’t place. A tiredness that was sinking into her bones and wouldn’t quite leave.

She’d tried asking Cole how he learned to forgo physical needs, but of course Cole couldn’t remember how, just that he did it ‘somehow’ and he was ‘sure she’d manage eventually’.

Today as she reviewed missives, Sera was sitting on her desk, legs swinging a bit. Leliana felt like she should mind but couldn’t quite bring herself to.

“Do you think we are even supposed to be here?” Sera finally asked. She didn’t look at Leliana but rather one of the ravens who was preening himself.

All her ravens were very good ravens.

“How do you mean?” Leliana asked in return.

“In blackest envy were the demons born,” Sera quoted. Ah. “Like, spirits messed up, and then demons messed up again, wanting to be here I guess. And I am here. I don’t… particularly remember the Fade, and so like. How would I even return? What would that be like? Not knowing how any of it worked anyway? That’s scary.”

This wasn’t the first time Sera had come with religious questions. It wasn’t a thing she had done often, but for some reason, Sera felt Leliana was the person to ask. And she supposed it made sense; Leliana had been the Left Hand of the Divine, and the Right Hand’s approach to faith questions was just ‘believe harder’.

Sera hadn’t appeared though since finding out she was some kind of spirit.

Leliana stood up from her chair and sat down next to Sera on the desk, which got her a very tiny smile. “I don’t know,” Leliana said. “I’m not even from the Fade.”

“Ugh, you gotta be all special,” Sera said, rolling her eyes.

The words really shouldn’t have hurt, but Leliana kept thinking of her past self that wasn’t her past self. A girl who thought she heard the Maker, who believed so strongly that the Chantry was simply wrong, that the Maker loved people and wouldn’t cast them aside. And all of her reasoning boiled down to she thought she heard him.

Perhaps that was why Leliana was the way she was; she was but a poor copy of a dead woman, who still felt her pain as her own. She had no idea these days if the Maker was kind or cruel, and her faith seemed less important than trying to do what was necessary.

And yet, she found it remained. A tiny flickering flame of what it used to be, but still she believed.

“This is blasphemous, but I’ve never fully trusted the official Chant,” Leliana said. “And the more I’ve studied, the more I see all of the edits, the additions, the subtractions, the specific verses focused on over the others.”

Sera gave her a cautious look.

“The verses are important, but they aren’t the end. Faith lives and breathes beyond the words,” Leliana said. “But, despite everything, I cannot think of why the Maker would find fault with what we are doing.”

“He’s found fault before,” Sera said.

“Yes, for good reasons.”

“For, what, I made a bunch of beings and then I didn’t like them?” Sera asked. “Found fault with spirits for nothing, shoved them aside, made mortals.”

Leliana gave her a look. “I thought you were Andrastian.”

“Yeah,” Sera said. “And?”

“You make Him sound fallible,” Leliana said.

“And He isn’t? If He were perfect, He wouldn’t have gotten things wrong. But, ugh, it’s like it’s different outside the alienage,” Sera said, and it was something that Sera even mentioned it. “He can both be, you know, a god and all, and I think scary with all that, and made us, and that’s really something. Literally what He is called, the Maker. He’s our god, and gods? Can’t even be comprehended, but that still leaves room for error, which obviously there was some error or none of this would have happened.”

It was a very different take than one Leliana was used to, of a more perfect being that could be known. She, or not she, had once been in communication.

“If he’s fallible, then why worry about what He thinks?”

“Well He got this much right, didn’t He? That’s a lot. I can’t even make a friggin painting. And why wouldn’t you care about the god that made you from Fade juice? So maybe He has really good reasons for not wanting spirits wandering around Thedas, and I just don’t know what they are. But also, yeah, what if as you said, it’s a push of the Chant? Or maybe this is one of the few things He’s wrong about, and then you have to find someone who can talk to the Maker to argue with Him.”

There was a weird pressure in Leliana’s head.

_ Do you believe yourself her equal? _

That wasn’t even really her. The pressure abated. It didn’t matter in the end if the old Leliana could or couldn’t talk to the Maker. She was dead.

“All we can do is our best and hope that is enough,” Leliana said. “I don’t think anything we are doing is wrong, but I don’t know the arguments. I’m as new to this as you are. Josephine might be of more help. She is genuinely Andrastian.”

Sera nodded before hopping down and wandering off.

The conversation sat in Leliana’s chest, reminded her of something she had since thought dead.

For some reason, it made her feel more tired than before.

—

The trip to Adamant took longer with the army marching with them. Even under the Qun with maximized efficiency, large numbers made people go slower. The sun baked his skin, but unlike in Seheron, it was too dry, and sweat evaporated almost immediately.

Mages had to be on hand to keep a localized cooling effect to keep people from overheating, and that was useful.

Dorian was traveling ahead, talking to Varric about something. Iron Bull wanted to join him, partially out of boredom, and partially out of the deep seated fear everyone he loved was going to die in front of him with little he could do to stop it.

You know, that Seheron mood.

He took advantage though of the distance, and had been asking Solas questions in between pondering his next mind chess move. He was almost certain Solas was leading him into a trap somehow, but right now he couldn’t see it.

“Okay so the thing is,” Iron Bull said to Solas, “I feel like he’s been more- blindsighted about Tevinter than before. Before he found out, he only occasionally entertained the idea of going home. We had had a few talks about a possible future, and he seemed fine with the idea of being a Charger. That’s all gone now. He is dead set on returning, and I don't know how to persuade him to not.”

Solas sighed as magic pulsated around him. There was a little sweat shining on the top of Solas’ head, and that was weirdly fascinating. Solas was a demon, or spirit, who sweated. Why? Was it an uncontrollable byproduct of having a body here, or was he on purpose sweating to blend in? “How honest do you want me to be?”

“Full honesty. I can’t help if I don’t know.”

“At the beginning of all this, I did say finding out one’s true nature can be deeply traumatic if not handled with care,” Solas said, chin raising slightly. “While there are definitely more traumatic ways to find out what you are, there are certainly better ones, and Dorian is likely on some level traumatized by this knowledge. Except now that he is aware he’s a spirit, his subconscious can play a more prominent role in how he responds.”

“You are going to have to explain more,” Iron Bull said.

“When spirits are injured, or recovering from blood magic or binding or trauma, they draw harder on what fuels them,” Solas said. “And thus overrides a multifaceted, complex being into someone seemingly obsessed with exactly one thing.”

More than spirits were already obsessed with exactly one thing.

“From what I’ve read,” Iron Bull said, because he read the dossiers on everyone, “Dorian didn’t always act this way when traumatized. After Alexius kicked him out, he had different coping mechanisms.”

“Likely,” Solas said, “because he viewed his link to his concept directly to Alexius at the time. I imagine whatever he did was extremely self-destructive, and frankly it’s a miracle he survived through the experience. From what I’ve gleaned, he more or less just existed in time and space until the next thing he could aid in came his way, upon which he immediately ran down South into the middle of a war and an area all too happy to kill any mage and any Tevinter and especially any Tevinter mage they saw because he ‘might be able to help’.”

“Shit.”

“It’s also possible that during part of that time, he temporarily lapsed into some kind of demon state,” Solas said. “And only recovered once he joined the Inquisition.”

“So… he’s not a demon now?” Iron Bull asked. “Spirit then.”

“Please tell him that,” Solas said dryly.

—

In Tevinter, the Old Gods pulled a lot of double duties on what they were the god of. Toth was the god of fire and invention and metal and dwarves. Zazikel, chaos and freedom and insanity, also had battle attributed to him, over the madness of battle itself.

It seemed fitting, Dorian thought, in the midst of a siege.

Necromancy was well-suited to battle however; it drained the life and magic out of fallen to bolster you, empower you further through their deaths. And, well, there were plenty of corpses to go around.

So Dorian cast fire across the battlements, as also Dorian raised up on his dead knees and stabbed through a Warden’s gut, and a Dorian behind watched to make sure no one snuck up on them and shot at those who did.

It really should have been a sign, how easy it was to simply be more than mere flesh in his body, to pour himself into dead empty vessels and look out through multiple eyes and not falter. He’d always known that wasn’t how most people had done necromancy.

He simply had been rendered incapable of knowing what he was doing thanks to his father.

Dorian spread himself out as much as he could until the strain of a dozen bodies was becoming too much for him. But then, years ago he could only manage a few before having to stop raising, and in the back of his mind he was curious how much more he could learn to handle.

As it was, with a dozen, he had a shield of bodies around him, and when one dropped there was always another fresh body he could breathe himself into. And if it was in service for a good cause, for stopping Corypheus and his lackeys, then surely he could ignore the burst of dark satisfaction at being so many.

—

Ghirill was in the Fade. Sera was in the Fade. Cole was in the Fade. Neither of them were having a great time. Both were screaming, actually, and clinging to each other.

She should feel bad, but she had managed to get herself _ into the Fade.  _ She didn’t care what anyone else said, that was magic. She’d done magic. This made her a mage, after a fashion.

“Finally some good fucking magic,” Ghirill said.

“Ahhhhhh!” Sera said succinctly.

“Yeah, fine, I’ll get you guys out, just, be patient for a bit,” Ghirill said.

Hawke and Loghain were with her, as was Cassandra. So Cassandra (and Sera) got to be there for the reveal it had never been Andraste but Divine Justinia.

“Hah! I was right!” Ghirill said, and she ignored the struck look on their faces because honestly, they could deal with some ambiguity about their own religion.

She had to hear people shitting on her gods all the fucking time. They could learn to deal. And what was left clearly wasn’t Divine Justinia but a spirit of some sort. Which of course the spirit wanted to help; Ghirill had the magical mark that made spirits just gravitate towards her.

She wished Solas could be here. She supposed he’d already been in the Fade, but it would have been nice. Or maybe he would have screamed like Cole did, at the sensations of being a nonphysical being physically there in your nonphysical home plane.

They fought their way past Nightmare, and in the end, Loghain remained behind. It was simple math. He was an older Warden with few connections. Hawke was younger and had people waiting for her on the other side.

Granted she had to physically drag Hawke away from sacrificing herself, but, you know, that happened sometimes.

—

The Fade had been scary and awful and highlighted just how much Sera didn’t want to be there.  Oh sure, Solas had said after, other parts of it were quite lovely, but also, no?  And it had felt like one slip, and she would have fallen out of her skin.

Horrible. The worst. She was so happy to be back at Skyhold with her stuff also with Dagna.  Widdles was cute, and sharp, and fun to be around. She was weird, but Sera was weird too. And because she was weird, she got some things.

“Cole might have told me you feel bad for being here,” Dagna said, sitting next to her in bed. She was shirtless but still had pants on, and Sera was pressed up against her.

“Ugh,” Sera said, which she realized was an admittance after Dagna gave her a soft look.

The Fade had her rattled. Not-Andraste had her rattled. She'd joined up because Herald of Andraste, who had said she wasn't, and then turned out no really she wasn't.

It was a lot, and it made Sera feel small.

“I can understand, after a fashion,” Dagna finally said, fingers toying with the sheets on the bed. “I… picked going to the surface over staying underneath. I’m not sure how much of the belief in the Stone is true, but my studies have shown that more was right than I first thought. There is a connection between dwarves and the Stone. I’ve done tests. It exists. But according to the stories, being on the surface severs your connection. You start to lose your stonesense, and Orzammar doesn’t allow you to return.”

“That’s shitty,” Sera said, because what else was there to say?

“It is,” Dagna said with a sigh. “But I did pick it. Ultimately I thought the trade off was worth it, to study magic. And while I know surfacers do lose their stonesense, I’m not sure it actually severs dwarves from the Stone, otherwise I shouldn’t have been able to temporarily access it with my lyrium tests.”

That had been a weird day for Dagna, thinking and being all the thoughts.

And, because Sera was weird, she could almost grasp the shape of it in her head. Wasn’t she just a single piece of something that wasn’t around anymore? Couldn’t she almost in the absence, the crawling nothing, feel what used to be more?

“So you are saying it’s fine,” Sera said.

“I’d like to think so, but with some things there’s no easy way to be sure,” Dagna said sadly.

Maybe it was a test of a sort. Maker said to stay away, but you weren’t supposed to. By failing the test, you showed you were doing it right. In the Chant, it was mortals’ act of creation and invention that He wanted spirits to do. If going to the mortal world made that easier, wasn’t that  _ supposed _ to be the right answer? Instead of pure thoughtless obedience, like how things did, like puppets on a string did, maybe they were supposed to look at the orders given and realize that they made no sense. If spirits were to be people, didn’t that mean thinking for themselves? And wouldn’t the tests for such beings to see if they blindly obeyed, or if they thought and questioned?

Obviously not everything said was a test. Most of it was probably for good reason. But that was the purpose of thinking and questioning, of arguing back a little. According to all the stories, the Maker very much didn’t want puppets; he wanted _ people. _

She didn’t know what words would make things better for Dagna, so instead she intertwined her fingers in Dagna’s. It was better than her first thought which was ‘grab boob for comfort’. Which. She had done before. Dagna had liked it. But it didn’t seem fitting right now, and if _Sera_ could tell it wasn’t fitting, then she definitely shouldn’t do it.

“I like it here,” Sera finally said. “I don’t think that’s bad. And- I’m glad you’re here.”

It sounded lame when she said it, but Dagna still smiled at her. “I feel the same.”

—

Adamant had been a hot mess, but it was over. Varric was thankful Hawke had lived. Hawke wasn’t as thankful, but she was getting better.

“Nightmare said a lot of shit,” Ghirill said after a moment. “I’d ignore it.” And that was her best attempts at offering comfort to Hawke.

Hawke had nodded, and then she had left soon after.

Cole meanwhile had freaked the fuck out about Adamant. Not just the Fade, but all the enslaved demons that had been there, and was terrified that could be him, that he could be made to hurt people again. They had investigated getting some kind of Rivaini talisman that would keep him safe. In fact, she’d gotten a box of them, and had passed them around, because seriously half of her Inner Circle was from the Fade.

“Stupid spirit attracting mark,” Ghirill had muttered to herself.

“It’s your sparkling personality,” Dorian said. “I was enraptured the moment I saw you and immediately had to pledge my allegiance to your cause.”

“Haha,” Ghirill said flatly.

Cole’s, however, had a problem, in that it didn’t work and caused him pain.

“It’s not causing you pain,” Ghirill pointed out to Solas.

“I’m not at conflict with myself,” Solas said. “Or, more accurately, I’m not in conflict with what I am.”

“So it’s going to do nothing for Sera then?”

“Probably, but she doesn’t need to know that,” Solas said. “I’m not convinced it will work for Dorian either.”

Great. Fantastic.

Ghirill glanced over at Cole, who kept shaking his head and twitching. “You’re in conflict?”

And then Cole pointed ominously in a direction. Where the direction led was to the Templar that had killed the first Cole.

Solas thought Cole should forgive the Templar, as he was Compassion.

Varric thought Cole should work through his emotions ‘naturally’ for whatever the fuck ‘natural’ meant.

“You’ve got a knife,” Ghirill pointed out to Cole. “You want him dead? Kill him.”

Seemed a simple fix, and Cole looked at her with bright eyes as she said that. See? He wanted to kill the Templar.

“You can’t allow him to do that,” Solas hissed. “It would pervert his compassion.”

“How?” Ghirill asked bluntly. “He’s been killing all sorts of people, not taking compassion on them, so he can feel compassion for other people. It balances out.”

And, frankly, Ghirill felt a little revenge could be good for you, could be cleansing. Again, she had tattooed Elgar’nan onto her face. She wasn’t sure why people were always so surprised when she leaned down towards that there should be rightful retribution to wrongs that had been committed.

“But those people weren’t the ones pointed at,” Solas said. “The amulet wasn’t working because he is at conflict with himself. The conflict has to be addressed in a manner in harmony with his purpose. He must show compassion.”

“I don’t think he should have to show compassion,” Varric said. “Some things fuck you up. But I don’t think he should murder the guy either. There’s killing in battle, there’s some well-placed bolts sometimes, and then there’s killing out of vengeance, and vengeance burns you out.”

“Hasn’t for me,” Ghirill said. “Sometimes at the end of the day, vengeance is all you have left.” When there weren’t any good options, because the world didn’t give you any. You worked with what you had.

“But that’s not Cole,” Solas argued. “And what works for you won’t necessarily work for him. Compassion is rare enough these days; there is no need to force less compassion upon this world. It could use more.”

“When it’s needed,” Ghirill said. “You can’t just open hands in compassion when the other person has been slaughtering your people, is planning to slaughter your people, and has said as much just yesterday. There’s compassion, and then there’s blind foolishness. Cole has murdered Templars before because Templars have by and large exhibited no compassion to others, not to mages, not to elves, not to random humans living their lives but had a mop upturned which looked ‘dangerous’.”

“But not every last Templar is a heartless monster,” Solas said. “Many, yes, and the order is inherently corrupt, but that doesn’t make monsters out of each and every person. This Templar may have once led to the death of the first Cole, but what has this man done recently? He isn’t in the fighting; he’s just trying to live a life away from all that. If he himself is on the path to become a better person, then killing him  _ would _ pervert compassion.”

Ghirill sighed. She didn’t want to show random Templars compassion, especially not when they led to the death of kids. She’d chosen what was important to her. Not everyone could fight, and Ghirill had decided that she would fight for her people when need be.

But Solas was a spirit and probably knew more about spirit things than Ghirill did. Even if she couldn’t fully see the shape of it, she could at least trust that the friendly Fade spirit who was so passionate about the sanctity and personhood of his own kind would very likely had more clues on this than her.

“Alright,” Ghirill said reluctantly. “I don’t like it, but, you are the expert.”

Solas smiled warmly at her. “Thank you,” he said.

“Wait, where’s the kid?” Varric asked.

Ghirill turned around to where the Templar had been and-

“Welp,” Ghirill said after a moment. “Seems like we took too long, and Cole decided for himself. Murder it is. Or, was. That’ll teach me not to just stand around and talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

On one hand, Cole didn’t lapse into too many legs or mandibles or eyes. He remained looking like Cole, and Ghirill found that comforting.

On the other hand, Cole just… stopped with his previous helping attempts. He still tried to pry his way into the companions’ hurts, but with everyone else? He didn’t. And slowly, that didn’t was starting to come with a slight temperature drop around him.

Ghirill had no idea how to fix this.

—

The dead Divine had sent a cryptic message to Leliana, and she and Ghirill investigated. It had to be the Valence Cloister, where Justinia had once been a Revered Mother as Dorothea.

The spy that was there was almost decent enough to not be insulting. Almost. Leliana figured out the game quickly, and Ghirill was reliable enough to follow suit. She pinned Natalie to a wall and listened to her self-righteous arguments.

"The Inquisition has turned Thedas away from the true Chantry. It must be stopped,” Natalie said contemptuously.

Ghirill had nodded, and Leliana had slit Natalie's throat. They progressed, and Leliana saw Justinia's final message. The Left Hand should lay down her burden.

A thousand lies. A thousand deaths. Her commands, but Leliana’s conscience that bore the consequences.

“She said that in the Fade, that she had failed you,” Ghirill said slowly.

“A spirit said that, not her.” Leliana would know the difference by now.

Ghirill raised an eyebrow. “A spirit with a good likeness and a dying message to impart. If I’ve learned anything from you, Sera, and Cole, it’s that spirits who model themselves after the dead normally do a pretty damn good job.”

“Thank you?”

“Point is, the spirit died before giving me that message. She felt bad.”

“No one else could have done what I did. She knows that,” Leliana said, more to herself than to Ghirill really.

“You are very good at your job,” Ghirill said. She hesitated for a moment. “I appreciate everything you do for us. I know it’s not nice work. It’s grim work. But it’s work worth doing. And there’s no saying how long this will last. I know enough about movements to know that simply killing the head doesn’t make all the problems magically go away. I… hope you don’t see it as a burden.”

Leliana smiled, genuinely. For all her gruff exterior, Ghirill had a good heart. “I don’t. And hearing you say that you appreciate me does wonders. It gives me courage to do what needs to be done.”

“I’m glad,” Ghirill said. “I don’t know what the old Divine had you do, and I know she had her regrets, but you are so helpful to us.”

“She wanted to save me I think,” Leliana said. It was sweet if misguided. “It’s funny; the thing she was trying to save me from wasn’t a thing that actually ever happened to me. She was worried about using me as Leliana had been used, but I am not her. The stakes were larger with Justinia, and now they are even larger with you. I don’t need saving; I am one of the few who can do what needs to be done.”

And saying that felt like a release. It felt almost like hearing the Maker.

She nodded to Ghirill. “We have much more work ahead of us. Let us return to Skyhold.”

Natalie had been hired by Victorie, who had always been an opponent of Justinia and Justinia’s attempts at reformation. She was a formidable enemy. But she had a younger cousin she loved and doted upon. Lord Firmin.

When she got back, she would see to it that Firmin was ‘acquired’ and made a ‘guest’ of the Inquisition, and that information leaked back to Victorie.

That should clear that problem up. If only all problems were solved so easily.

—

Dorian’s correspondence from Tevinter had all but ceased. The one remaining person who still faithfully wrote him was Maevaris. She was concerned, she still wanted to be friends, and she, apparently, managed where no one else did.

She said it wouldn’t be safe for Dorian to return to Tevinter, and it was like something broke in Dorian’s brain, because he didn’t know who he was, how he could _be_ without Tevinter.

So Dorian did what he always did in such situations: steal a bunch of wine and go drinking in a dark corner where no one could bother him.

Sure, Alexius was a rat-bastard who engaged in true blood magic and threw aside all dreams of making Tevinter less shitty. Because any aid, any amount of reformation was still reformation done. Every scrap mattered to _someone._ Alexius had pissed on that when it came to Felix, thrown it all away even as Felix had begged Alexius not to. And when Dorian had tried to side with Felix, and surely in such situations you are supposed to respect the dying’s wishes (and they had been such good friends, and, yes, sometimes Dorian thought of things far less proper than he should have). Alexius in return had crushed Dorian’s hopes and dreams and cast him out.

And then Dorian just hadn’t been for a while.

He specifically did things that would hurt himself and sabotaged everything that came his way. He couldn’t get himself to stop, not until Father had sent people to kill the Abrexis staff for knowing too much and dragging Dorian back. And then after he’d broken out of his father’s estate, he’d slipped back into a mindless haze of sex, alcohol, and opiates. Even knowing what he did now, he had no idea if that was some demon thing or just classic self-destructive behaviors.

Because Alexius had shaped him, had pulled him out of depression before, had stopped him from mindlessly going after any authority figure on basis of them being an authority figure, and had pointed him to a hard path of possibilities and hope. Alexius had made him as much as his father had, and what he’d made Dorian into was a radical looking to improve Tevinter.

Maevaris didn’t think it was feasible, and Maevaris was the one desperate for any ally at all. The only possibility would be to redo the spell that had been on Dorian, and that would require people to die, so, not an option.

And thus Dorian was going to drink, and hopefully not self-destruct as hard as when Alexius had pushed him out. And Dorian did manage to do a fair amount of drinking before Cole showed up.

“Hello I am here to help,” Cole announced with far too much cheer.

Dorian was lying on the floor and staring morosely at the ceiling. “Hello Cole.”

Cole sat down next to him. “I’ve heard your hurts. I know a lot of people have tried to give you a solution, but I have a solution that will actually work.”

Dorian raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked dryly, without any heart to it. “And what might that be?”

“Maevaris said you couldn’t do politics, that there was no way to weave yourself in,” Cole said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t still help with reformation.”

Dorian waved a hand about. “That’s how though. You have to fix the country. If I can’t help fix the country, it’s not going to get fixed.”

“No, there’s other ways,” Cole said. “Like murder.”

Dorian sat up slowly, squinting at Cole. “…murder.”

“Murder!” Cole repeated cheerfully.

…maybe it _was_ possible to demon Reformation.

“You have my interests piqued,” Dorian said.

“Many magisters are malevolent,” Cole said. “So just kill them. The worst ones. The powerful political entities that Maevaris might not be able to manage. Some would be difficult because magisters prepare for assassins, but they are mere mortals. And you have many talents for murder. Reformation is a many-sided issue and requires many hands. Just because you can’t politics doesn’t mean you can’t still help in other needed ways. So, murder them.”

“It might just be the alcohol, but you make a lot of sense,” Dorian said. “What inspired this? You and your stabbing of that one Templar?”

“No, you,” Cole said, blinking once. “I thought about it, and you did your reformation thing by coming down south to murder magisters. They just made it easy by calling themselves Venatori and fighting in the South where it’s legal to murder mages. That worked for you. You are still ridding Tevinter of the worst. So just do more of that. Have Maevaris tell you who needs to disappear, and then disappear them!”

Cole was weirdly enough making a lot of sense. Granted Cole’s sense could be warped by the fact that he recently murdered that one Templar, but you know, maybe sometimes murder was the answer.

Maybe, even, he could do it part time. Constantly trying to kill magisters would only increase their defenses, so maybe he could kill some magisters, as a treat, and then pop down again back South to meet up with Iron Bull. And, as Iron Bull had suggested, work with the mage rebellion to improve magical education in the South.

And like that, he felt better and almost like a calm focus had sunk into his mind.

He felt like himself again.

Cole patted his knee. “See, it’s not the end of the world. You just had to reframe your thinking.”

“Thank you for your help Cole,” Dorian said fondly.

“Sometimes it does help having been there first,” Cole said.

—

Josephine had noticed when Ghirill and Leliana had left to do something, somewhere. Leliana came back with steel in her eyes, and a determination that floated about her.

But she came back, and that was not something Josephine would take for granted.

“How are you handling Divine Justinia’s death?” Josephine asked. The memories had to be fresher with Adamant in everyone’s minds.

And despite that steel, Leliana still smiled at her. “Better than before. Ghirill was helpful. I realized I’ve always been what I’ve needed to be, what others needed me to be but couldn’t handle doing themselves. There are many thankless jobs in this world, and I can handle them.”

Necessity then.

“Having a direction is important,” Josephine said, even as she felt disappointment at what direction Leliana took.

Disappointed, but not surprised. She couldn’t expect Ghirill to back Leliana in Faith.

Leliana caught her eyes and frowned. “I know you are less than pleased with my line of work-”

Josephine wanted to reach forward and catch Leliana’s hand, grab Leliana for a kiss, but instead slid her hand forward. Leliana took it and cradled it to her chest.

“I could care less what direction you went in,” Josephine said. “I’m simply happy you are around. That you are here. I love you Leliana, and I’ll love you in whatever concept you embody. I love you for your gentleness, I love you for your faith, I love you for doubts, and I love you even when you have blood right there on your chin.”

“You’re too good to me,” Leliana said.

“Never,” Josephine declared. “If you want to steel yourself, then I will be your nicer half. People will hopefully learn to deal with me first.”

“They better learn fast,” Leliana said. “And also, you say that as if you haven’t ended marriages and blackmailed people into compliance.”

“Without killing them!”

“Haven’t I said that not killing them can be effective? Just _rumors_ of assassins is much more affordable than actual assassins. And some of your blackmail comes from my spy network.”

“Blackmail which normally works! And then you don’t have to murder people.”

“People who are blackmailed tend to not do us favors in the future, and sometimes actively conspire against us.”

“Which is why you don’t _always_ use blackmail,” Josephine said, now well into their familiar argument, but with a smile on her lips. “You pick and choose according to the occasion.”

“As do I. And sometimes that occasion is a knife.”

—

Cole hadn’t come back right from the Templar trip, friendliness aside. He didn’t knit sweaters for nugs, and he didn’t try to cheer up the cooks.

He didn’t even try to liberate the few hostages Leliana had taken.

And so the two other members of the Fake People Club decided to step in. They waited until there was another meeting. Neither of them were drinking nearly as much to keep their wits about them, but Cole picked up on something, giving them a sharp glance.

Sera sighed, glanced at Dorian, and then apparently decided to just go for it. “Look, you were afraid of going demon before, and now, you are kinda going demon. Not there there, but getting in the vicinity of.”

“Why would you care?” Cole asked, a bit sharp. “Spirit and demon is the same word to you. You’ve never cared.”

“But _you’ve_ cared,” Dorian argued. “And we are mutual members of the Fake People Club. You helped me, and now it only seems fair that I should do the same in return.”

“Why?” Cole asked. “Because I murdered _one_ Templar who murdered Cole?”

“No, because you haven’t been doing your help thing,” Sera said. “The only thing you seem to care about is when you are going to get to go out and stab some people.”

“People who should die,” Cole said. “People you both think should die. And also some people aren’t worth helping.”

“Some, yeah,” Sera said. “If they are obviously doing evil things right then. But sometimes your gut instinct is wrong. My experience with Wardens other than them saving Ferelden was that they took a lot. A lot of money, a lot of food, a lot of people, conscripted it away. Mixed feelings at best, but took a chance on Blackwall, and that paid out. My experience with Tevinter mages was that they invented fake plagues to lure you in for medicine and then they kidnapped you to sell you on the slave trade-”

_“What?”_

“-but I took a chance on Dorian, and that also paid out. I didn’t with you, and that- that was a mistake. You’re alright, when you aren’t skittering close to demon.”

“I still hear the hurts,” Cole said. “I hear the cook’s hurts, that she’s sad, and lonely, and misses Ferelden. She also whips the servants under her. I hear the servants hurts, but also one of them did turn in an apostate once and watched as the Templar bashed the apostate’s head in. Everyone’s hurting each other, all the time.”

“I know,” Sera said. “People are complicated. But… they can be worth it.”

Cole didn’t look convinced, and Sera glanced to Dorian frantically.

“Sometimes, they realize they are being shitty people,” Dorian said. “A large number of people are awful because they are scared, or angry, or lashing out. Life was unkind to them, and so they impart unkindness around them. Helping them helps them remember to be kinder. People can get better, and then fuck up, and then get better from the latest fuck up. And sometimes it’s not even because of anything particularly awful; they just didn’t know better. But you’ve helped me very recently, and I have been… horrid before, to many.”

That seemed to reach Cole, just a little bit.

“We’re friends though,” Cole said.

“We are,” Dorian said.

“I didn’t appreciate you, before,” Sera said. “But it’s about minimizing hurts, yeah? It wasn’t about people being _perfect._ Sometimes you stopped people from hurting each other, by stealing knives before a fight. You knew Leliana was up to all sorts of things, but you still wanted to help her, because in helping her, she got maybe a bit softer. Maybe was a bit nicer, the next time. Putting in some help into the world is never wasted. And like Dorian said, he got better. I- am getting better. Maybe other people can too, and that should be worth it, yeah?”

Cole looked sad. “Sometimes they don’t though. Sometimes they remain awful no matter what.”

Sera knew that all too well.

“Well you don’t know if you don’t try,” Sera said. “I’m not saying trying on people actively trying to kill us on the battlefield, and I’m not saying prioritizing people actively shitting on others over the people being shat upon, but, you know, otherwise, yeah. I mean, I was awful to you, and you never did nothing but try to help, and I miss that. There’s all sorts of little people in this world that could use just a little niceness to their lives. Even if they are imperfect. Even if they do mess up sometimes. I… don’t know where that line is. I liked the line before, where you just killed Templars and Venatori and other people trying to kill us. People who are going to do massive hurts. Really, really bad people.”

“What about normal bad people?” Cole asked, fiddling with his sleeves. “Would you have me ‘make an example’ like you do?”

“Yeah,” Sera said brightly. And, who knows, maybe there could be a spirit Jenny.

She then realized there had been at least one spirit Jenny: her.

She blinked at that, and then kept on going. “A warning, that behavior is only tolerated so far. ‘Stop it or worse things will come’. But for the most part… even if it’s not what I would do, people could use some compassion. Because the world itself sure ain’t going to hand any out.”

Cole sighed. “It’s like there was a switch,” he said. “I was okay, was Compassion, and then I killed the Templar, and now everything’s all different. Bitter and bleak. It’s… hard to remember why I was so focused on helping.”

“How did you make the change before?” Dorian asked. “You killed innocent people before once, when you were the ghost of the Spire. You became a spirit after that.”

“Desperate and in despair,” Cole said. “But yes, I made the switch before. Because of- of Rhys. He wanted me to be better, and I wanted to be better for him. So I stopped, and I tried to be better, and then- huh. I guess I can’t remember how exactly I became Compassion again.”

“So, you don’t have to feel it at first it don’t sound like,” Sera said, making a very strong mental note and underlining it. “You just gotta keep with it, and then you’ll feel better. And if Rhys was that guy to make you go all spirity, keep him in mind? I’m sure he wouldn’t be angry that you killed whosit, but you want to stay Compassion for him, right?”

“He wasn’t perfect,” Cole said, eyes distant. “I didn’t need him to be. He was my friend. He talked to me, and that was enough, even if his compassion was flawed. And when it came down to it, he eventually did the right thing. I- okay. He wasn’t perfect, but he _deserved_ compassion. It holds true. I can try.”

Cole gave them a small smile. “Thanks for talking to me.”

“Of course,” Dorian said. “You’re our friend. We like to help in return.”

Cole glanced over at Sera, and she sighed but did say, “Yeah. Friends.”

“I will try,” Cole repeated. “I have to set a good example after all.”

—

First, Ghirill had to listen to Morrigan badly explain her culture to her. Then Ghirill got to hear Solas’ hot takes on the elvhen deities as well, and she didn’t feel like getting into a long argument about such matters. Then ancient elves talked over her like she was a child. Solas seemed to agree.

And then she got a bunch of voices in her head because damn if she was going to let some pretentious human who thought she knew elvhen lore better than an elf end up with the wisdom of the ages.

So. She wasn’t in a great mood, but when Solas had offered to go someplace private, Ghirill had thought ‘oh maybe this will help’.

Instead Solas told her the vallaslin originated as slave markings.

“I feel there’s some interesting historical context to that,” Ghirill said after a moment of thought.

“What context is needed?” Solas asked, eyebrows lowered.

“Why we all wear them,” Ghirill said. “People tend to model themselves after people in power, not the other way around. So what happened that ancient elves felt keeping the markings was the right option? Was there some sort of massive revolt where people slaughtered all the nobles or something? Obviously even so, there had to been some cultural identity to the markings at the time, otherwise people wouldn’t keep them. That’s just basic logic.”

Solas stared at her.

“All I’m hearing is those who deserved to survive survived,” Ghirill said. “The nobles either died or assimilated in, possibly in fear of standing out. And obviously, they weren’t just slave markings, or we wouldn’t have kept them. If they hadn’t meant something to ancient elves, they wouldn’t have worn them when they were slaves in Tevinter. And even if they hadn’t, the meaning shifted in time, and that’s not what they mean anymore. I don’t wear my vallaslin for ancient elves; I wear it for me.”

“That’s- not the perspective I learned,” Solas said slowly.

Ghirill shrugged. “What did you expect me to say? Even if what I said is pure conjecture, for some reason we kept the markings. And they haven’t been ‘slave markings’ in a very, very long time. They honor the gods now. Culture and symbolism change, just as language does, just as people do. It means it’s a living one, not stagnant and dead. Learning from the past is a wonderful thing to do, as long as it isn’t in sacrifice of those currently alive.”

“So… you wouldn’t want them removed,” Solas asked.

“No,” Ghirill said. “Though… I can appreciate your offer. I think perhaps you just haven’t checked in on living elves of late, but again I appreciate your concern.”

Solas nodded slowly to himself.

And then Solas broke up with her.

—

So, maybe, she was a bit bitter. Maybe she wasn’t doing so great. Maybe she had a few drinks, because her partner broke up with her because her vallaslin meant something to her.

And she stood by what she said. Obviously it couldn’t be as simple as ‘slave markings’, or it wouldn’t have been kept around. There was a history to vallaslin now that was intriguing, and instead of Solas finding it intriguing, he was apparently upset she took a different angle. Or something. Solas wasn’t really talking to her, instead sulking off and hiding.

She was giving herself one day to be upset, and then it was pressing on because things weren’t over yet.

A knock came at the door, and she wiped her face to hide any tears.

“Yeah, whatever,” Ghirill said.

The door slowly opened and in walked Josephine.

“Hello there,” Josephine finally said. Ghirill gestured for Josephine to sit down, and she did so.

“I heard what happened,” Josephine said. “I’m very sorry he broke up with you.”

“He’s a bastard,” Ghirill said, not that she felt it, but because if she said it maybe she’d believe it. Maybe if she could find anger it’d make the hurt less.

But she couldn’t find her anger. In sheer irony, the reaver who did shots of dragon blood couldn’t find her fury in the situation. Her eyes burned again, and that she felt anger about. She didn’t want to cry and be weak in some corner, especially not in front of someone.

“He is a bastard,” Josephine agreed, “but, you are allowed to be upset over this. It’s natural to be at the end of a relationship.”

Ghirill said nothing.

“If you want,” Josephine offered slowly, “I could get Sera. I’m sure she has all sorts of pranks she’d be willing and happy to pull on him.”

Ghirill half-snorted, half-hard exhaled. “No.”

“Nobody would know, but you and I, and he’d have that little frustrated crinkle in his brow.”

“I’m good.”

“I could utilize Blackwall to ask him all sorts of awkward personal questions,” Josephine said. “That Blackwall has been wanting to ask anyway. That’s a win all around, except for Solas.”

“It’s fine, Josephine,” Ghirill lied. She wanted it to be true. They weren’t sworn to each other or anything. She knew Solas a deeply opinionated person; it was part of her draw to him. She was deeply opinionated in return. It wasn’t like they hadn’t fought before over the Dalish. This had just been the dealbreaker for him. For some reason.

“I understand that you are in a position where people will notice and talk about your emotions,” Josephine said. “And you don’t want that. You don’t want to show any weakness.” Which was true. She didn’t. “But if you ever need someone to have one on Solas on your behalf, well. I’ve got connections. I could set Yvette on him to ask about demon orgies. During a social function, so he wouldn’t be able to escape.”

Ghirill’s lips twitched in a smile at that. “I appreciate the thought.”

—

The world didn’t end. Ghirill faced off against a god and won. The Inquisition celebrated, and Solas vanished on her.

It was fine, she told herself. They’d broken up. They weren’t sworn to each other.

And time passed.

The Inquisition continued to root out Venatori and Red Templars. They did their best to coordinate local efforts to root out where red lyrium spread and worked with Orzammar to find a solution.

Sera continued her Jenny work and remained with Dagna, which, that stung a bit, seeing them together. Dagna took to working with Orzammar in stride and perhaps some amount of smugness, that she was one of the experts Orzammar didn’t like acknowledging.

Cole slowly healed from killing a Templar and found a friend outside of the companion group: a minstrel (not a bard).

“Traveling would give me the opportunity to help more people,” Cole said. “And she likes bringing joy to people. I feel better around her, like I remember more why I am.”

“That’s good,” Ghirill had said.

If Sera also inducted Cole into the Jennies, well. Traveling Jennies were useful to have.

The mages ended up freed and worked to figure out an alternative to the Circles. Dorian joined them and offered his own knowledge of Tevinter of things that worked and things that didn’t and things that could have worked but the bills kept not getting passed because the Magisterium was a cesspit. He enjoyed hunting Venatori, and sometimes, would disappear across the border for a spot of murder.

“Just don’t get caught,” had been Iron Bull’s tired response.

“Can I help?” had been Krem’s more enthusiastic response.

She watched people pair off and felt bitter but it was fine. Really. It was. She’d find someone else in the future. She just wasn’t ready yet.

—

Josephine had held her breath how long Leliana would last past Corypheus’ death.

And then Leliana was elected Divine Victoria. With it came a purpose, a continuation. Leliana no longer hummed lyrium or stared off into the distance but focused on implementing her many, many plans.

A lot of them involved people dying, as the old Chantry was not welcome to change, but Leliana was determined to reform it.

“I approve,” Dorian said. “You know a number of high ranking Chantry officials would have tried to overthrow her, even if she did win the election.”

“I know,” Josephine said.

But she had meant it, that she’d love Leliana no matter what she picked. And while her path was a bloody one, there were such good intentions in Leliana’s heart. And, as Josephine had promised, she worked to negotiate and sway people before Leliana had to send in her knives.

Leliana ended the Circles. She opened the doors to the Chantry to all genders and races. She worked at actively removing Chantry influence from various areas, which caused such an outrage amongst the Chantry that Josephine lost track of the dead.

But that wasn’t the only change.

“So, you know, I’m Divine now,” Leliana said. She was, in fact, wearing her Divine outfit as they had afternoon tea.

“I noticed,” Josephine said with an amused smile.

“So I can change rules. I’m technically infallible. Anything I do is correct.”

“I don’t believe in that.”

“That’s in the rules, Josie,” Leliana said with a wave of her hand. “The point is, Andraste’s husband was the Maker, but she too had a husband in Thedas. I might have changed things so members of the Chantry can engage in relations.”

“Relations,” Josephine repeated with a raised eyebrow.

“Well I was going to say they no longer have to be celibate, but that didn’t actually apply to our situation. The point is, if, you know, you wanted to get married in an extravagant display to show off to everyone, that’s allowed.”

Sure, in theory, there was no need. Leliana was the Divine. Leliana was a weird spirit, and Josephine was a demon. But Josephine loved extravagant displays of _anything_.

“Can I plan the wedding?” Josephine asked. She had so many thoughts when it looked like she might have gotten married once to a fiance she had, but it had fallen through after she told him she was a demon. He decided that that was a dealbreaker for him, and she’d politely wiped his mind of the encounter, leaving only that he decided against marrying her.

(It wasn’t magic she used often, but when she did need it, it was extremely useful.)

“I’m going to have to color code us to the wedding to the season,” Josephine continued, thinking out loud. “Not Summerday when it’s common to marry. I want ours to stand out, and for people to not have an excuse not to attend.”

“I’m the Divine,” Leliana pointed out. “Many people will attend.”

“Early spring would be too cold,” Josephine continued. “Late spring is too close to Summerday. Early autumn, perhaps. You look good in autumn colors.”

Leliana laughed. “Do I get a say in our wedding?”

“You have good taste,” Josephine said diplomatically. “I’ll consider suggestions.”

—

The day of the Exalted Council stretched longer than Ghirill could have ever imagined. The Inquisition would disband, she had decided. There was no point in having history repeat itself.

Besides, she would do better with a small strike team. Solas- Fen’harel had his spies among them. She’d only pick people she could trust, and then new faces, ones he didn’t know about.

Ghirill stood, one remaining arm crossed across her chest, and stared out into the distance, not really seeing.

Sera slipped up next to her, with Cole, Dorian, Leliana, and Josephine lingering shortly behind. The Fade brigade. It was something they all still wanted to press around her even without Fen’Harel’s magic on her hand.

“…you’re not okay, huh,” Sera finally said.

“I’m not,” Ghirill said flatly.

“How-” she faltered for a moment, looking small. “How are you feeling?”

Ghirill’s eyes narrowed. “I’m feeling betrayed. I’m feeling like the guise of a compassionate person was just that, a guise. I’m feeling like my ex wants to destroy the entire world and tried to leave it up to me to change his mind. I’m feeling downright murderous.”

Ghirill had finally found her anger.

Dorian gave her a compassionate look. “So... definitely not trying to win him back then.”

“He’s trying to do _genocide_ ,” Ghirill said, giving him a sharp look. “He told me the world he wants will be the end of my people, and he says that while using _my people_ to do his dirty work. And not just us, but qunari, dwarves, humans. I- I once thought he was an interesting person to talk to, with interesting ideas. He had so many stories that were so well told. I _loved_ him. What does that say about me?”

“Well,” Sera said awkwardly, “it says you aren’t a fan of genocide because you still aren’t trying to get back with him, yeah? So good on you. He fooled you. That hurts. He fooled all of us. He’s probably good at that, seeing as he’s a not-god and all. Which, how are you taking that?”

Ghirill shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know how much of it was true. Normally I would be inclined to listen to Solas’ interpretations of events, not necessarily believe them but listen to them, but I’m having a hard time trusting his perception of the past when he’s currently trying to destroy the fucking world. Really makes me doubt his perceptions, you know? How biased is the person who thinks ending the world is the answer? I’m not saying everything was perfect, but… I don’t know. Maybe we had a different definition of ‘god’ back then. Maybe they were cruel, maybe they were just about on average with how rulers are. But I refuse to believe he was telling me the whole truth. He hadn’t ever before; why start now?”

Ghirill took a steadying breath. “So. I’m going to find him. And then, somehow, I’m going to kill him. Or seal him away if he can’t be killed. If everything we had didn’t change his mind that we are people, I doubt anything else I could say will do that.”

Cole patted her on the shoulder.

“I will help, as much as I can,” Leliana said. “Though I have a few spymasters-in-training that should probably take over the main job as I can’t give you my full time anymore.”

“We can all help,” Josephine said. “Though it is just like a spirit to destroy a world not to his liking instead of enjoying it like the rest of us.”

“I’m getting so many mixed messages on which one I should be,” Dorian said, and then Cole patted him on the shoulder as well.

“Well,” Cole said. “I think the real lesson we learned along the way was sometimes the solution to your problems is murder!”

“That’s what I learned,” Dorian said.

“Absolutely,” Ghirill said.

"Agreed," Leliana said.

Josephine sighed. “Maker take me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now normally I go with the idea that murdering the Templar wouldn't actually do anything bad to Cole, but for this fic I wanted to play with the idea that it would, that Solas knew what he was talking about, if only so that the Fake People Club could help him out with his problems. It only seemed fair!


End file.
